A Case of Mistaken Identity: Antihaitianismo in Dominican Culture

by Ernesto Sagás

For over a century and a half, Haiti and the Dominican Republic have
shared the island of Hispaniola. Their relationship, however, has
rarely been amicable. In the Dominican Republic, this antagonism has
led to the creation of a set of anti-Haitian prejudices called
antihaitianismo. Antihaitianismo is actually the present
manifestation of the long-term evolution of racial prejudice, the
selective interpretation of historical facts, and the creation of a
nationalist Dominican false consciousness. That process, of course,
did not take place spontaneously. It was orchestrated by powerful
elite groups in the Dominican Republic with strong interests to
defend.

The Origins of Antihaitianismo

The early origin of what later came to be known as antihaitianismo is
to be found in the racial prejudices of the Spanish inhabitants of the
colony of Santo Domingo (Tolentino Dipp 1973, 1992). Spanish
colonization in the 16th century brought sugar, slavery, and racial
prejudice to the island. A white Spanish elite controlled the
colony's administration and ruled over a mixed population of creoles
and slaves. On the other hand, the dominance of cattle ranching as
the colony's main economic activity lessened racial tensions and even
promoted miscegenation. That does not mean that slaves were treated as
equals. Slavery existed, slaves were mistreated, and slave rebellions
were severely punished. Furthermore, the color of one's skin indicated
to a large degree one's social standing and economic position
(Tolentino Dipp 1973, 1992).

This status quo changed with the spectacular growth of the French
colony of Saint-Domingue (on the western side of the island) in the
18th century. With half a million slaves and a stronger economy, the
French colony was a powerful rival. The Spanish authorities constantly
struggled to maintain the political and cultural integrity of their
territory. As a consequence, the first glimpses of Dominican
nationalism emerged in the 18th century as part of a differentiation
struggle from the French (Pierre-Charles 1974, 28). When Haiti became
an independent state in 1804 (after a bloody revolution), this
Hispanic nationalism not only persisted but was reinforced by the
brutal campaigns of Haitian president Jean-Jacques Dessalines. The
Santo Domingo colonists not only saw themselves as different, but they
preferred to be anything but Haitian. These feelings were conceived
and reproduced by the colonial elites who sought to maintain Spain's
sovereignty, even though the colony was ceded to France in 1795. In
order to promote nationalist feelings, elites emphasized the Hispanic
culture of the Santo Domingo colonists versus the French and, later,
the Haitians. According to them, the colonists of Santo Domingo were
white, Catholic, and had a Hispanic culture. The Haitians, in
particular, represented the opposite and the worst; they were black
voodoo practitioners who had an African culture with a thin French
veneer. The Santo Domingo colonists, regardless of their color, soon
started calling themselves blancos de la tierra, that is, creole (or
local) whites (Moya Pons 1977, 280).

The Haitian occupation of Santo Domingo (1822-1844), although
passively accepted by most of the population (and even celebrated by
lower-class groups), was strongly rejected by the elites, who lost
their privileges and administrative jobs to the occupation
armies. Dominican elites further resented being at the mercy of
individuals whom they considered inferior because of their skin color
and social status. The great majority of Haitian army officers were
ex-slaves themselves, with little or no education, and lacked the
finesse and manners that elites regarded so highly. During the period
of the Haitian occupation, many of these elite families left the
country, a fact deplored by Joaquín Balaguer, who commented that
Santo Domingo lost most of its "best" families at that time (Balaguer
1984, 59-60).

When the Dominican Republic became independent in 1844, elites
portrayed this event as the realization of their efforts to maintain
Hispanic-Catholic culture intact in the face of the Haitian
occupation. As they stated in the independence manifesto of the
Dominican Republic, "due to the difference of customs and the rivalry
that exists between ones and the others [referring to Haiti and the
Dominican Republic], there will never be a perfect union nor harmony"
(Despradel 1974, 86). With the Haitians out of the scene, Dominican
elites regained their privileged social position and their high-level
administrative posts.

In the face of repeated Haitian attempts to recover their former
territory, the presence of antihaitianismo among the general Dominican
population of the mid-19th century is not surprising. The
independence struggle was often expressed in an anti-Haitian form in
order to promote nationalism. What is more difficult to justify is the
perpetuation of these anti-Haitian attitudes long after
independence. By the time of the War of Restoration (1865), Haiti no
longer planned to re-annex the Dominican Republic. As a matter of
fact, the Haitian government even helped Dominican patriots in their
struggle against the Spanish. However, Dominican elites still
professed their anti-Haitian prejudices, in part because they
reflected their personal views about Haiti, and also because they
employed antihaitianismo as an element of national cohesion and
domination. These prejudices were reproduced at the popular level;
being Dominican soon became identified with being anti-Haitian
(Despradel 1974, 86). To this "nationalist" prejudice, Dominican
elites added some of their old cultural and racial
prejudices. Dominicans were portrayed as devout Catholics, while
Haitians were voodoo sorcerers who believed in spirits and utilized
black magic in mysterious ceremonies (Hoetink 1982, 181-192). Finally,
Dominicans were somatically "white," proud descendants of the Spanish
conquistadores, while Haitians were truly black, the sons and
daughters of African slaves. It was not long before Dominicans
occasionallly classified themselves as dark, but by no means
black. Only Haitians were considered black. Therefore, race, culture,
and nation were perceived as one by the Dominican elites. To be
Dominican meant that one was Hispanic and not black, regardless of
one's skin tone.

The writings of important intellectuals of the late 19th century and
early 20th century clearly reflect the anti-Haitian attitudes of the
Dominican upper classes. José Gabriel García, Francisco
Henríquez y Carvajal, and Américo Lugo, among others, expressed
the general racial prejudices of the time, but with a strong
anti-Haitian slant (Vega 1988, 26-30). Dominican literature at the
turn of the century is even more prolific regarding anti-Haitian
attitudes. Novels, short stories, and poems exalted "Dominican"
traits, while denigrating Haitian influences to the point of making
them appear barbaric. Tulio M. Cestero, Francisco Gregorio Billini,
César Nicolás Penson, Federico García Godoy, F.E. Moscoso
Puello, and Juan Antonio Alix developed a nationalist narrative and
poetry that contrasted Dominican Hispanic values with Haiti's African
superstitions and customs (Vega 1988, 30-38).

One of the most important myths developed in the late 19th century that
remains influential to this day is that of the Dominican indio. After the
Dominican Republic regained its independence from Spain in 1865,
Dominicans no longer looked at Spain as their fatherland. In their search
for a new national identity, Dominicans elites looked at their Amerindian
past, as some other Latin American nations had already done. The
publication of the novel Enriquillo by Manuel de Jesús Galván (1909),
a heroic portrayal of the indians' resistance against enslavement by the
Spanish colonizers, marks the high point of this indigenista literary movement.

Even though the Amerindian population of Hispaniola was exterminated in
less than a century, the Dominican elites portrayed the Dominican people as
the descendants of these brave indians and the Spanish colonists. It was a
greater honor to have a rebellious indian as a predecessor than an African
slave. Soon, Dominican mulattoes started considering themselves indios
(an obvious reference to their claimed indian ancestry). Mulattoes, who make
up the majority of the Dominican population, disappeared, to be replaced by
the Dominican indio. Being indio also helped the mulatto to "whiten" his own
perception of his color and race (Despradel 1974, 94-97). To hide a common
African past, the words "black" and "mulatto" also disappeared from Dominican
Spanish, and were replaced by the less traumatic and more socially-desirable
indio. "Black" and "mulatto" referred to Haitians, who were considered the
real
blacks.

Antihaitianismo in the Trujillo Era

Between 1930 and 1961, the Dominican Republic was ruled by dictator
Rafael L. Trujillo. Relations between Haiti and the Dominican Republic
from 1930 to 1937 were essentially cordial. In 1937, however, a
massacre of Haitians by the Trujillo regime marked a drastic turn in
Trujillo's Haitian policy. Relations between the countries were
strained and Trujillo used the 1937 massacre as the starting point of
his policy to secure, develop, and transform the Dominican borderlands
into a national showcase. On the other hand, this policy was also
designed by Trujillo to bolster his control over the national
territory and to develop Dominican nationalism into a cultural shield
against "foreign" (i.e. Haitian) influences. In order to do so,
Trujillo recruited the services of some of the better-known
intellectuals who remained in the Dominican Republic, particularly
Manuel A. Peña Batlle and Joaquín Balaguer.

Manuel A. Peña Batlle embarked on the task of distorting
Haitian-Dominican history to portray Haitians as hostile foreigners
who were culturally and racially inferior to the Dominican people. In
his famous address to people of the border town of Elías Piña,
"El Sentido de una Política" (The Meaning of a Policy), Peña
Batlle clearly displays the state's official line regarding Haitians:

There is no feeling of humanity, nor political reason, nor any
circumstantial convenience that can force us to look indifferently at
the Haitian penetration. [Talking about the typical Haitian migrant]
That type is frankly undesirable. Of pure African race, he cannot
represent for us any ethnic incentive. Not well nourished and worse
dressed, he is weak, though very prolific due to his low living
conditions. For that same reason, the Haitian that enters [our
country] lives afflicted by numerous and capital vices and is
necessarily affected by diseases and physiological deficiencies which
are endemic at the lowest levels of that society [Peña Batlle 1954,
67-68].

In his "Carta al Dr. Mañach" (Letter to Dr. Mañach), Peña
Batlle defends Trujillo's Haitian policy and places the
Haitian-Dominican conflict into a distorted historical
perspective. According to Peña Batlle, the current conflict between
Haitians and Dominicans is just the modern version of the old conflict
between the invading French buccaneers and the Spanish
authorities. Peña Batlle establishes a rather flimsy historical
bond between the contemporary Haitian migrant and the French invaders
of the past. Just like the French buccaneers, the Haitian migrants of
Peña Batlle's time were portrayed as foreign invaders who coveted
the whole island of Hispaniola. Based on these arguments, he attempts
to justify Trujillo's authoritarian policies:

In the Dominican Republic there should not be, there cannot be, a
government so uninterested in the use of force that it turns itself,
as it has happened many times, into an agent of Haitian
expansionism. Democracy, as understood and exercised in some
countries, is a luxury that we cannot afford. When will you Cubans,
our dearest neighbors, understand that truth? Know this well, Minister
[Mañach], as soon as the Haitians stop fearing us, they will bite
us: silently, quietly, without you or anyone knowing about it [Peña
Batlle 1954, 96].

Just as Peña Batlle defended Trujillo's actions from a historical
perspective, Joaquín Balaguer served as one of the regime's most
efficient and outspoken apologists. In La Realidad Dominicana
(Balaguer 1947), considered the most brilliant defense of the Trujillo
regime, Balaguer justifies Trujillo's Haitian policy as part of the
natural and inalienable right of the Dominican people to defend their
culture and way of life.

Consequently, there is no reason of justice nor of humanity that can
prevail over the right of the Dominican people to subsist as a Spanish
nation and a Christian community.The problem of race is, by
consequence, the principal problem of the Dominican Republic. If the
racial problem is of great importance for all countries, for Santo
Domingo, by the reasons already mentioned, this issue is of an immense
significance, since on it depends, in a certain way, the very
existence of the nationality that for more than a century has been
struggling against a more prolific race [Balaguer 1947, 123-125].

Notice again how Balaguer makes indistinct use of the terms "race" and
"nation," so as to pretend that Haitians and Dominicans not only
belong to different nations, but also to completely different
races. This argument became part of the official credo and was
reproduced among the people through the efforts of Trujillo's
political machinery, including the official Partido Dominicano.
Trujillo also supported antihaitianismo ideology with actions. In a
handbook for alcaldes pedáneos (rural mayors), Trujillo instructs
them to watch out for "Haitianizing influences whose consequences will
always be extremely fatal for Dominican society" (Ginebra 1940, 8).
Law 391 imposed jail terms, fines, and sometimes deportation for those
found practicing voudou or luá (Gaceta Oficial, 20 September
1943). These measures were aimed at further curbing any Haitian (or
black) influences and at legitimizing and institutionalizing
antihaitianismo by giving it the full support of the judicial system
and the state bureaucracy. For almost 31 years the Dominican people
were subjected to this ideological bombardment. Not surprisingly, just
as vestiges of trujillismo still show up in Dominican culture, so does
antihaitianismo remain a powerful force in the Dominican political
culture.

Antihaitianismo Today

Though antihaitianismo is no longer part of the state's official
ideology, as it was during the Trujillo era, the tenets of
antihaitianismo are still widely employed in contemporary political
discourse in the Dominican Republic. Writers like Carlos Cornielle,
Luis Julián Pérez, Manuel Núñez, and Joaquín Balaguer
promote nationalism with heavy doses of antihaitianismo. Furthermore,
they constantly and unreservedly portray the Dominican Republic as the
affected party in the Haitian-Dominican relationship and Haiti as the
offending party. Although some of these writers, most notably
Joaquín Balaguer, belong to the trujillista "old guard," others,
like Manuel Núñez, are part of a new generation of anti-Haitian
nationalists.
Balaguer's "new" brand of antihaitianismo is detailed in his
controversial best seller La Isla al Revés (The Upside Down
Island). La Isla al Revés is basically a modified and updated
version of his 1947 apology of the Trujillo Regime, La Realidad
Dominicana, from which entire sections have been copied. In this new
work, Balaguer once again defends the Dominican case. The Dominican
Republic, he argues, has had the historical misfortune of living next
to Haiti. Still, the Dominican Republic has been miraculously able to
maintain its Hispanic- Catholic culture in the face of Haitian
penetration (Balaguer 1984, 63). Balaguer then goes on to offer some
distorted views of Dominican history:

The extinction of the indian race gave way for the population of Santo
Domingo
to be integrally constituted by European families, especially Spanish
and French.
Before the Treaty of Basel (1795), the colony's population was formed
by the
best of the families that had migrated to America, attracted by gold or
by the
fascinating mystery of remote expeditions [Balaguer 1984, 59].

In this brief passage, Balaguer helps to perpetuate the myth of the
white Dominican by ignoring the fact that there was a considerable
number of blacks and mulattoes in the colony before 1795 (Moya Pons
1977, 378-379). Balaguer's romantic notion of Dominican history is,
unfortunately, shared by many Dominicans. Also widely shared are his
19th century notions of racial differences:

. . . the negro, abandoned to his instincts, and without the restraint
on reproduction that a relatively high level of living imposes on all
countries, multiplies himself with a speed similar to that of
vegetable species [Balaguer 1984, 36].

Balaguer's bigotry is not only limited to Haitians, but includes all
members of the black race. Two related facts are important. First,
that Joaquín Balaguer has been president of the Dominican Republic
on six occasions. He is not an obscure writer, but a person who has
the power and influence to impose his views on the rest of the
population. Second, La Isla al Revés became a national best seller,
which suggests that many educated Dominicans share Balaguer's views.

Manuel Núñez, in El Ocaso de la Nación Dominicana (The
Twilight of the Dominican Nation), tries to rescue some of the old
trujillista arguments of nationalism and antihaitianismo by using the
cultural argument. According to him, in order for the Dominican
Republic to survive as a cultural entity in the face of Haitian
aggression, decisive steps must be taken (Núñez 1990,
310-311). Núñez also attacks Dominican revisionist historians
(such as Roberto Cassá), accusing them of being poor scholars,
anti-Dominican, pro-Haitian, and even Marxist imperialists
(Núñez 1990, 130-132). Clearly, antihaitianismo is far from
over. New generations of Dominican intellectuals keep it alive by
reproducing the same old myths and prejudiced arguments in slightly
altered forms.

Antihaitianismo in Dominican Culture

Antihaitianismo permeates every aspect of Dominican culture from
everyday talk, to literature and public education. A history of tense
relations between the two countries, the creation of an anti-Haitian
ideology by the 31-year-long Trujillo regime, and the reinforcement of
these prejudices and distorted historical notions by subsequent
administration have made antihaitianismo an integral part of the
Dominican popular and political culture. Antihaitianismo is a set of
attitudes that are acquired early in life and reinforced by the
socialization process. Family and friends are the first agents of this
process. More important, however, is the role played by public
education. Public education, unlike the teachings of family and
friends, is not a loose, uncoordinated, and incomplete process but is
coordinated and formative. It is institutionalized, supported by the
state, and is designed to form Dominican citizens. It is in school
where Dominican children learn the historical "facts" that they will
identify with and reproduce later in life.

Unfortunately, what most Dominican children learn at school is a
national history full of distortions, myths, and prejudices (Franco
1979, 149). An analysis of Dominican history textbooks from the early
20th century to the present reveals a number of flagrant errors,
romantic myths, and plenty of antihaitianismo. One of the most common
myths is that of messiahnism. Juan Pablo Duarte, the nation's leading
hero and intellectual author of Dominican independence, is glorified
to extremes. Joaquín Balaguer even compares him to Jesus Christ:

The father of the Fatherland had a conscience enticed by the figure of
Christ
and made in the image of that sublime redeemer of the human family. In
order
to find a figure with moral traits comparable to Duarte's, it would be
necessary
to look at the history of saints and other blessed creatures. [Balaguer
1970, 201].

Another of the historical myths is that of the intervention of the
Divine Providence on the side of Dominicans. After exalting the
brilliant victories of the Dominican armies in the face of the more
numerous Haitian armies, Balaguer adds, "The fact of [our] survival is
one of those miracles that prove the wisdom and kindness with which
Providence governs the events of the historic world" (Balaguer 1984,
63).

Dominican history textbooks also portray Haitians as the eternal
enemies of the Dominican people. The Haitian invasions and the
Haitian occupation (1822-1844) are the subjects of detailed
descriptions that emphasize gory examples of Haitian
atrocities. Haitians are portrayed as barbaric savages, the living
incarnation of cruelty whose only objective was to destroy Hispanic
culture in the Dominican Republic. The Haitian leader Jean-Jacques
Dessalines was a "heroic monster that surpassed with his boldness and
cruelty the boundaries that separate man from beast" (Balaguer 1962,
12). The Haitian invasion of 1805 was graphically described by several
Dominican historians:

The destruction, the burning, and the killing were the wake that
Haitians left in their retreat [Gimbernard 1974, 178].

The priest Don Juan Vásquez suffered a cruel death: he was burned alive
in the
chorus' balcony, using as tinder the benches and other combustible objects
of the church [Monte y Tejada 1953, 244].

The road that goes from Santiago to Cap Haïtien was covered with dead bodies,
and like errant shadows, children looked for their parents in vain [Pichardo
1966, 67].

. . . scenes of horror frequently alternated by death, infused anxiety
and fear into those that survived to face new disgraces, and to give
testimony of the consummation of horrendous crimes [Logroño 1912,
162].

. . . quenching their brutal furor on that harmless attendance, from
which very few
were left alive, because even the officiating priest was spiked by their
bayonets, in the middle of the horrendous uproar of that horde of savages
[J.G. García 1968, 319].

In other cases, such as the Historia Gráfica de la República
Dominicana (Illustrated History of the Dominican Republic), by José
Ramón Estella (1986) who was a Spanish immigrant, the text is
accompanied by detailed drawings in which Haitians are always
portrayed with crude and ape-like features, while Dominicans are
always drawn light-skinned and with European features (Estella 1986,
71-181). As a result of this manipulation and distortion of Dominican
history in school, Dominican children acquire these attitudes and
beliefs and make them their own. They often grow up despising and
discriminating against Haitians for their past atrocities and
perceiving themselves as white Hispanics vis-à-vis the Haitian
black.

In order to perpetuate this false consciousness, the Dominican
government has institutionalized many of the racist elements of
Dominican culture. For example, the word indio is commonly used to
describe the great majority of Dominican mulattoes. The Dominican
government uses indio as a skin color descriptor in the national
identity card that every adult Dominican must have. That way, indio is
no longer a slang term, but an official racial category, accepted and
used by the Dominican government for identification and classification
purposes. Most Dominicans fall within the indio category. Those with a
darker skin tone are labeled moreno, but actually very few Dominicans
are labeled black, due to the term's pejorative connotations.

In conclusion, antihaitianismo has had a long and intricate evolution.
From its origins as Hispanic racism, to its transformation into
anti-Haitian nationalism, to its culmination as Trujillo's state
ideology, antihaitianismo has had one objective: the protection of
powerful elite interests through the subjugation of the lower (and
darker) sectors of the Dominican population. Antihaitianismo serves
elite interests well and has even been accepted by the great majority
of the Dominican people as part of their political culture, thereby
institutionalizing and giving it the moral legitimacy that it lacks.